The invention relates generally to methods and systems for printing computer-generated images. More particularly, the invention relates to methods and systems for assembling and formatting documents in preparation for printing.
In print shop environments, content from multiple sources is often merged to create a new document. For example, in the production of an illustrated calendar, photographs may be scanned to produce the calendar illustrations. The scans are then interleaved with calendar pages, which may have been produced in a page layout program or a word processor. Generally, before the document is output to a color printer, additional layout and job options are specified, such as single-side vs. duplex printing, resolution, color profile and print profile. In particular, page imposition, in which selected individual pages are imposed on a single sheet, is an extremely useful layout option. The individual pages are arranged on the sheet to yield a proper page sequence in the finished document. Page imposition greatly facilitates post-printing processes such as collating, cutting, and binding, so that a printed document with the pages in the correct order results.
Various methods and systems for page imposition are known. For example, Stone et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,768,488 describes a page placement process that enables user-defined placement of pages in an N-up environment. Holt U.S. Pat. No. 5,495,561 describes an object-oriented printing interface having a page imposition feature. Benson U.S. Pat. No. 6,046,818 describes a method for imposing and rendering a plurality of non-overlapping pages to be printed on a single sheet. Any of these examples would be well suited for producing a document such as the calendar described above, in which all of the pages to be imposed are of the same size and page orientation. However, all suffer the common limitation of being unable to impose pages of varying sizes and page orientations.
Thus, there remains a need in the art for a process for imposing pages of varying sizes and orientations. It would be a significant advance to implement such a process as a server-based software application in a network environment, enabling the user to perform the various steps of the imposition process in any software application, from any workstation on the network, and to output the finished print job to any print device on the network. It also would be desirable to furnish other advanced layout features, such as negative gutter size, customizable trim and fold marks, and specification of binding options.